How to jag a D-type

By Dave Selby

12:00AM BST 31 Aug 2002

With its famous trio of Le Mans victories between 1955 and 1957, the D-type Jaguar is not merely beautiful, but rare, too, and exalted like no other sports-racer of the era. Yet the way they've been cropping up at auction lately you'd think they were almost common, writes Dave Selby.

In June, Christie's sold a 1956 D-type with a complex history for £360,000 in London. In fact, this car was one of two which have both claimed the identity of chassis number XKD 530. Next, RM Auctions in America sold XKD 528, a 1955 D-type with a successful US racing history and clear provenance, for a healthy £670,000 at its annual Monterey, California sale on August 16.

Next to cross the block is a remarkable "barn-find" D-type, XKD 534 (pictured below and opposite), which is being offered at Bonhams' auction at the Goodwood Revival Meeting. Sold originally to New Zealand and raced successfully in its early life, the 1956 short-nose car has been in the same family's hands since 1964 when it was bought by Noel Foster. Foster didn't use the D-type for competition, savouring it instead for fun driving on high days and holidays on the rural roads of New Zealand's north island. His son - also Noel - recalls that "Dad used to commute in a Brooklands Riley, but said it took him 30 minutes each way. Once he tried the D-type and cut 10 minutes off his time, so he took to using it regularly".

Last used in the early 1990s, XKD 534 is a little bruised and scraped but, for its age, in a remarkable state of time-warp preservation. With a mere 40,000 miles on the clock, it still has its original leather seat coverings and is expected to command between £400,000 and £500,000 at auction.

Three D-types for sale openly in as many months isn't a great number, but when you consider that only 71 D-types - plus a further 16 XKSS road-going versions - were built, that's a significant proportion of production.

Indeed, Coys in London was also due to offer a "very exciting D-type" at its auction at the Le Mans Classic festival on September 21 and 22. "In the event," says Coys consultant Chris Routledge, "we could not professionally advise the owner that the sum he wanted was achievable."

The truth is that the public arena of auctions is only the tip of an iceberg. "You scratch the surface and there are plenty of D-types available," says Routledge. "But owners' sensitivities that there are too many on the market means they don't like it put about too publicly that their own cars are for sale."

The recent flurry of D-type activity began in November 1999 when Christie's sold the 1956 Le Mans-winning car for £1,700,000. There has also been a string of £600,000-plus sales of cars with good competition histories. There is also currently a one-owner D-type quietly for sale privately in the US with an asking price of $2.5 million.

However, Routledge has his reservations about the D-type market: "When a few sell for good money, then that encourages others. There's a danger of swamping a very finite market."

The Bonhams auction starts at 5.30pm at the Goodwood racing circuit near Chichester on Friday, September 6; tel 020 7393 3822 for details.